Mercury Meltdown

The PSP's blobby puzzler congeals for a much better flow this second time.

The first Mercury was a nice showcase for the PlayStation Portable, giving us a handheld puzzler that was most unlike anything else we'd played before on handhelds. It was powered by technology that couldn't really be done without the power of a console-quality system but with that addictive pick-up-and-play feel that you'd usually want to have with you rather than just stuck on your TV. One look at it and you knew you had to get your hands in this blob. But while the concept was great, the final game just wasn't as fleshed out and fun as it looked. It was unforgiving and limited, garnering fans for those who could handle the challenge but leaving everybody else with little to do with their shiny little blobs.

Ignition has poured out this sequel with the aim of addressing every issue of the first game, and it's a success on most every level. The level structure is changed and improved, the challenge level is more even-handed, the multiplayer is more thoroughly designed, the bonuses you unlock are well worth the effort ... it's a better, blobbier game to enjoy. There's not necessarily anything hugely different in Mercury Meltdown, but if you threw down your PSP in frustration last time, you can be sure that you're system will be safe from being smashed this time, and if you dug the first game but are worried about it feeling tired a second time, there are plenty of new ways to play and bonuses to earn to bring you back for more.

What makes Mercury Meltdown so much more enjoyable is the change in how it presents the levels. Last time, only a handful of levels were unlocked at a time, and for each one, you had to pass on a variety of levels to get through. You had to beat the clock, you had save your leaky Mercury, and you had to trigger the gates by solving the puzzle -- sometimes, you had to watch out for all three worries at the same time just to see more of the game. This time, a full 16 stages are presented at a time for you to work through each time you unlock a Lab of levels, and progress on each stage builds into your total progress. Every drip of Mercury saved from the abyss in this puzzler goes towards opening up the next level, while each Bonus Star collected on a finished level will get you one step closer to unlocking the Party games.

Sure, you will eventually have to put together a neat-perfect run (if you have the skills) to earn the true high score and unlock all the game's goodies, but you don't have to try so hard your first time through. The game still plays on once the evil clock runs out, and unless you lose every drop of your Mercury, you can usually play through to the end of a stage. Maybe you won't make much game progress by finishing a stage with only 5% of your Mercury left, but the feeling of satisfaction is still a gigantic reward when the game gets really tough. And once you complete a stage, you're pumped up to go back in and do it better until you've got that Golden Cork on your level's completion vial. Yes, this change makes the game seem easier overall than last time, but it's impossible to find fault with this improvement -- later levels are still tricky as hell (not to mention that there's well over twice as many of them), and switching to a performance-based leveling system allows pros to barrel through early stages and skip up to the tough tasks much faster.